


Knives Out in The Old Guard

by Angelphoenixwings14



Series: ...What If? [3]
Category: Knives Out (2019), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Crossover, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Gore, Post-Canon, Temporary Character Death, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:08:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25614856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelphoenixwings14/pseuds/Angelphoenixwings14
Summary: What if the knife Ransom grabbed hadn't been a prop?  What if he'd been successful in his Hail-Mary murder, and got paid in kind?And what if that changed everything?Or the Knives Out/Old Guard crossover nobody asked for.*This will likely have spoilers for both Knives Out and The Old Guard, so if you haven't seen both movies, don't read this.
Relationships: Marta Cabrera/Ransom Drysdale
Series: ...What If? [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1741747
Comments: 54
Kudos: 105





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stargazingfangirl18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargazingfangirl18/gifts).



> So this crack baby got birthed in my head through a conversation stargazingfangirl18 and I had, and so here it is. Not all that surprising since the last 2 movies I've become grossly obsessed over have been Knives Out and The Old Guard consecutively, but still gifting this to my lovely pop-culture soul sista <3
> 
> What you need to know per the rules of this series:  
> 1\. This is post canon for both movies. Nothing in The Old Guard movie is changed, but the ending for Knives Out obvi is.  
> 2\. There will be TEMPORARY major character death, which if you've seen The Old Guard (and SHOULD if you're going to read this) you'll understand the premise and mechanics of. For this reason, I'm not adding it to the major warning section.  
> 3\. I don't really know much about The Old Guard comics except for a few things I've heard about through Tumblr, so please forgive any canon divergence I do from that.  
> 4\. This is going to be a brutal ride, and I'll add more tags as the story develops, but just wanted to say this'll prob be a darker fic than usual (which might be saying something but hey). Ye be warned.

Marta choked, the knife plunged into her chest causing blood to fill her lungs. Crimson spit up onto her lips and peppered Ransom’s face to join the vomit still clinging to his porcelain skin. He had the decency to look a little stunned, his cold eyes widening as he watched her convulse, felt the hot, wet rush of her blood seep into his fingertips where his hand clutched the blade. He watched the fear and anguish tear her eyes up, until she suddenly went still and lifeless beneath him.

He blinked.

Then, the world came crashing back to him. His heart hammered. _Fuck,_ what had he done? The cops reached for him, tearing him up from Marta’s body. _She’s just a body now. Just like Fran._ And he’d pay the price for both of them. His fury bubbled back, hot and festering like an infected wound. He didn’t even hear the scream that tore from his lips as he wrenched his weight around. 

Trained and capable or not, Ransom had bulk and fury to help him overpower both Elliot and Wagner. He still had the knife in his hand, and he lashed out with it wildly. He managed to slice Elliot across the arm, through his sleeve. The detective shouted and lurched back, hand clutched around his bleeding arm. In his panic, his partner took out his gun and fired.

Ransom only felt the sting for a moment, and then everything went black.

~*~

When Marta startled awake, she had a string of unfamiliar faces still flashing through her head and a heart pounding faster than she’d ever felt. Her chest heaved, wide brown eyes flickering around the dim, sterile room. Gray concrete and silver fixtures surrounded her, and she abruptly became aware of the chill in her bones. Glancing down, she blanched at finding nothing on her save a stiff white sheet pooled around her hips. 

Her hand immediately clamped to her bare chest, and she looked around the room with renewed horror. It took a moment of trying to process the metal tables and square cupboards mounted into the wall for her to recognize the morgue for what it was. Her insides suddenly hollowed out, sickness choking her throat and stomach. Just as she was trying to process the impossible of why she’d be here, cleaned and nude in preparation for dissection, she caught movement in her peripherals.

Her stomach dropped when another figure lifted from a table on the other side of the room. A hand came up to pull the sheet down, and the face suddenly looking back at her was none other than Ransom.

The look on his face was so filled with fury and venom that she forgot about her state of nudity and scrambled off the table. He followed suit, tossing the sheet covering him off as he swung his legs off the table. She ran blindly for a door, her clumsy fingers fumbling with the heavy handle too long. Ransom’s arms wrapped around her, and he jerked her back ferociously. 

She shrieked, and grabbed for the square metal table in front of her. Her fingers folded around a steel pan filled with surgical instruments, and she whipped it up for Ransom’s face. A yowl left him, and she slipped free of his arms as everything she’d thrown clattered to the ground. She didn’t get far before he lunged for her, dragging them both to the freezing cement ground. Ransom crawled over her in a frenzy, his hands going for her throat once she twisted around to try and fight him off.

“You fucking bitch! You got me killed,” he snarled at her, feral. Her heart pounded, felt like it might explode as he compressed her throat and she struggled to breathe. She didn’t have a hope of fighting him off, her fingers feeble against his bulging muscles, so she reached outward, scrambled to get her fingers on something. Her hand clamped down around a bulky handle, a few of her fingers slipping through the loops in the surgical scissors. Meant for cutting through tissue and muscle, she had no problem driving it straight through the skin of Ransom’s neck.

He screamed, jerked his head to the side as if that might help. Frantic, Marta stabbed him again, tears blinding her from the spray of blood. She managed to shove the scissors into the base of his neck a third time before his hands jerked her up and cracked her back into the cement hard enough to stop her. Again, her gaze went void, but Ransom couldn’t focus on that or the sticky blood oozing out through her hair. He was too busy pulling metal from his searing throat and choking on his own blood.

The same way Marta had.

It was a strange thought to have while his body throbbed with pain and he felt the frantic pressure of being unable to breathe, drowning on his own blood.

~*~ 

“Jesus,” Nile said once they walked into the morgue and she looked about the scuffle. Tables pushed about, a spill of ominous tools on the floor, still wet crimson painting a macabre picture of it and the two bodies lying next to each other, still out cold. For once, the timeliness of the first few revivals benefitted them, and Andy somehow had more patience now that she was mortal once again. 

She studied the scene with more objectivity than Nile, the newest immortal’s lip curled in apprehension and disgust. Nicky and Joe searched more peripherally, the latter having found the mortician’s reports on their two new dream stars. As he read, the two in question slowly came to. Marta’s cracked skull fused back together, and the gashes in Ransom’s throat mended closed. They breathed painfully at first, and then more normally until consciousness filled them with horror. Marta jerked up, once again trembling as her beady eyes looked around. Ransom sat up more slowly, his expression pinched in aggravated confusion. 

“You guys just killing each other?” Nile asked, her dark eyes looking between the two expectantly. Nicky almost laughed, his lips quirking in a half-smile as he looked toward Joe.

“They’re like us,” he noted, his accent adding a sharpness to his words. Joe met his lover’s blue-green gaze intently and offered a ghostly smile back.

“No, Habibi. Nothing like us,” Joe cooed, winking at his lover with enough flirtation to make both their hearts flutter. Confused out of her goddamn mind, Marta somehow became aware of her nudity in all this and reflexively covered herself as if that could hide the raw fear she felt in this suddenly nonsensical world. Ransom just blew out a breath, his hands planted into the ground, ignorant of the drying, sticky blood. He looked from one foreign face to the next, the steel blue gaze of the woman kneeling in front of him finally captivating his attention.

His lips curled in a sneer before he barked, “Who the fuck are you guys?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our crossover characters get their bearings on one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to bust out a chapter today because it's someone's birthdayyyyy. You know who you are ;) Happy Birthday darling, and I hope you enjoy this chapter <3

“Why these two? It doesn’t make any sense,” Andy speculated, completely ignoring Ransom’s question for the time being. Joe twisted to look at her with awe slackening his expression.

“She’s a nurse, boss,” he told her. Andy’s eyes brightened as she stared at Marta, her interest piquing with her newfound need for medical care. 

“And him?” she asked, not quite able to take her eyes off Marta, which allowed her to watch as the young woman soured.

“He’s a cold-blooded killer,” Marta snapped, drawing Ransom’s piercing gaze to her.

“Aw. Don’t sweet talk me,” he cooed facetiously. She grimaced, tears blinding her as she shied away from Ransom and looked for a means to escape her current situation.

“Why don’t you let me handle this one,” Nile murmured to Andy, her dark eyes honed in on Marta’s anguished expression. Knowing how the oldest of them had handled _her_ introduction to this change, she didn’t want another to go through the calloused approach. And not one who already looked so… broken. She shed her jacket as she knelt before Marta and offered a terse smile. “Lets see if we can find you some clothes, huh?” Nile said, though she slipped her jacket over Marta’s shoulders to help for the time being. Marta flinched, but that didn’t discourage Nile from winding a hand around her arm and helping her up – and away from Ransom. 

“Nicky,” Andy called, though the man already had two bundles of clothes in his hand to bring to the newbies. Finally, Andy’s sharp eyes slanted toward Ransom. “You’re going to be my problem child, aren’t you?” Ransom paused in trying to forcefully rub the blood off his neck to look Andy over.

Before he could think of a response, Joe said, “Boss, these two were all over the news. Some… inheritance fiasco from a famous author.” Ransom rolled his eyes while accepting the clothes Nicky found for him. He shifted back, picking himself up off the floor. He finally grimaced a little feeling where the blood stuck to him, and walked toward one of the lab’s sinks while Nicky passed Marta’s clothes off to Nile. Joe continued to summarize what he was reading on their two new immortals to the group, “Hm. Seems like Marta has some pretty substantial assets.” 

Or _did_ , before she’d been publically reported as dead.

“Call Copley. See if he can keep some of them secured for us, and get rid of the news stories… sweep them under the rug, whatever he does,” Andy ordered.

“I want my family taken care of,” Marta said, the first steady words she’d managed since waking. Nile shielded her while she pulled a cotton sweater on and finished buttoning the pale jeans around her hips, but she stepped forward to look at Andy and Joe intently once she finished dressing. She swallowed thickly, choking on the first words she uttered next; “I died. I know what that means. My family needed me, and if I can’t go back… I need to know they’ll be okay.”

“I’ll bring it up, make sure Copley can do something,” Joe promised, nodding solemnly to Marta.

“And you?” Nicky asked, looking to Ransom, who scoffed derisively.

“Oh, I don’t care. They can all fucking rot,” he snapped, still entirely nude as he busied himself with washing the blood off his skin. Nile pursed her lips disapprovingly, but she couldn’t quite stop her eyes from flickering over his rigorously perfected physique.

“You’re a real charmer,” she muttered all the same, unimpressed in the grand scheme of things given he’d been nothing but a royal asshole. Ransom wiped more blood off his shoulder with water from the faucet, before he glanced back at her and smirked.

“You’ll know when I put on the charm.” Everyone rolled their eyes at him then. He finished cleaning all he could with the help of the sink, and then pulled the jeans Nicky found him on. They weren’t exactly his size, so they pinched to his hips uncomfortably. Grimacing, he tugged at the crotch area to get it to sit a little better on him before he turned toward the group again. “You never answered my question. Who the fuck are you people?” he repeated, while tugging the baggy T-shirt with some band print on it over his head. His lip curled as he added, “And I’m gonna need better clothes.”

“We’re like you. Heal our wounds, come back from the dead… immortals, so to speak,” Nile answered, glancing toward Andy briefly. The eldest gave a subtle nod of encouragement, before she took over.

“And we need to have the rest of this conversation elsewhere, where someone won’t see you two have risen up from your tables,” Andy said. She swiveled toward the door, before she gave a pointed look toward Ransom’s ratty appearance. She flicked her finger around and added, “We’ll make a run to get you both a few changes of clothes.” _Thank God,_ Ransom thought, because as he walked a few steps forward, the jeans rode up and tightened on him again. He tugged the crotch down again, fighting to mute his grimace as he followed the others toward the exit.

He slowed as Marta and him came close together again. His blue eyes flickered over her sullen expression. She looked sickly and still a little dazed, but he couldn’t help marveling at her still. “You know, I didn’t think you had it in you,” he murmured. Her dark eyes darted to his face, lips parting in her confusion. She blinked as he rubbed the side of his neck absently, the area still a little blotched by crimson stains. “Just didn’t expect the kitten to have claws,” he admitted, and her stomach tightened. Her mouth snapped shut as she hurried forward without speaking a word to him.

Ransom smirked, accepting the challenge he felt from her aversion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise the next chapter will be more exciting xD I just had to get through this 'group solidifies into one unit' bit done with and wrap up some loose ends from my Knives Out divergence.
> 
> Seriously though, thank you ALL for leaving kudos and comments on this fic. I seriously expected nobody to be interested in this, so having a couple heads perk has just been so wonderful T_T Thank you, thank you! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are we _really_ immortal? Like… can’t die of anything immortal?” Ransom asked, nearly bouncing with his giddiness of the news. “Why the hell are we not partying like its doomsday right now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I am so shocked with the reception this fic has gotten. Thank you all so much for your interest and support! It means the world to me, and I hope you enjoy the next installment of this crazy ride <3

“Are we _really_ immortal? Like… can’t die of anything immortal?” Ransom asked, nearly bouncing with his giddiness of the news. “Why the hell are we not partying like its doomsday right now?” Andy sighed, her head shaking slowly. Problem child, indeed. They found themselves north, in New Hampshire, where the populace was a little more scarce and the wilderness plenty enough to give them a place to lay low. Copley was working to erase their two new immortals from the public face, so until that happened, they were back to the quiet life.

They had hotel accommodations, and a pair of rooms linked by a double-sided door. They all sat in one of the two rooms to discuss what Ransom and Marta needed to know.

“Yeah, you’re immortal. _For now_ ,” Nile answered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ransom prodded.

“It means one day your ability to heal will fade, and you’ll be mortal again, so it’d be a wise idea to not waste the ability on ODing,” Andy chided him. 

“Well that’s a waste,” Ransom said, lip curled in distaste. Shaking his head, he asked, “What do you guys do with it, then?”

“We help people,” Joe answered.

“Uck.” Ransom rolled his eyes. _Of course_. Joe’s brow quirked, a smile hinting at his lips.

“By fighting,” he added, amused when – as he suspected – Ransom perked up.

“Well now you’re talking.”

“How does fighting help people?” Marta asked, her nose wrinkling in disbelief.

“By fighting for those who have trouble fighting for themselves,” Nicky said.

“So…. You guys are like assassins, or something?” Ransom clarified, looking from one face to the next. No one outright answered him, but he took their contemplative head tilts and side-eyes as confirmation. Laughing, he said, “Wicked. You gonna teach us?”

“I… don’t want to become an assassin,” Marta muttered, shying away from the conversation. She turned toward the round table she sat at and looked at her own folded fingers. Andy watched her for a moment, before she huffed and nodded toward Ransom.

“Yeah. We can train you. Next place we get with a little more room. For now, we should get some rest. You two’ve been through a lot,” she said.

“C’mon. You’re with us,” Joe said to Ransom, his fingers touching to the broad man’s shoulders. Ransom glanced at him, and then scoffed.

“Didn’t take you guys to be so puritan.” They ignored him and approached the connecting doors. Ransom glanced at Marta, knowing their separation was likely for her sake. When she wouldn’t look at him, he knew that was the case. Chuffing, he met Nile’s intent gaze and winked, before he followed the other men into the second room. Nile lifted from her seat to close their side of the door and locked it.

As Nile re-took her seat at the table with Marta, Andy said, “I understand you take issue with our occupation. How do you feel about mending wounds inflicted by it?” Marta looked at the ancient woman seated on the couch in their room and straightened up.

“But I thought we heal-?”

“ _You_ do,” Andy said, and Marta put the pieces together. As her face went slack with understanding, Andy smiled ruefully. “Yyyyeah. Yeah, I know we lose our mortality from first-hand experience. Recent experience, and I know nothing about how to take care of a scrape the old fashioned way.” Andy was steady as she said it, unflinching, but Marta could tell by her eyes how uncertain this made her feel.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to stop putting yourself in dangerous situations?” Marta asked. Andy laughed and tipped her head.

“Yeah, it probably would, and I don’t expect you to understand what we do before you see for yourself, but this calling isn’t something I can turn my back on just because I’m not immortal anymore.” They were quiet for several minutes, before Marta nodded absently.

“Alright,” she murmured, sounding more tired than before. Andy nodded and looked her over.

“Lets keep this between us for now.” Again, Marta nodded, too tired to argue despite having no reason to. Keeping weaknesses out of Ransom’s awareness was something she wished she’d known just a few days ago. They readied for bed and fell asleep shortly after, Andy and Marta occupying the two beds in the room with Nile took the couch to accommodate the two weathered women.

It didn’t matter. The comfort of a mattress didn’t help Marta avoid her nightmares. From Ransom’s violence against her, to Harlan’s slit throat, to the strange, distorted images of people she’d never met. A beautiful Asian woman with a sharp smile, and a haggard blond who couldn’t seem to walk straight made her twitch in her sleep. Their anger and despair infected her, until she lurched awake with a gasp.

Heaving, she looked around the foreign room, to Andy and Nile still asleep, and smoothed her fingers through her hair. Rattled, she blew out a breath and got out of bed. She grabbed a thick wool cardigan, slipped her shoes on, and stepped outside. She shuffled up to the railing of their second floor hall and leaned against it. Sighing out a heavy, fogged breath into the frigid night air, she bowed her head and tried to will the knots out of her neck.

The door next door clicking open jolted her upright. She looked, and froze from the inside out as Ransom stepped outside. He offered her a wry smile as he silently closed the motel door. “Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” he asked. She didn’t answer him, and watched his every move cautiously. Chuckling, he held his hands up. “I come in peace.” Again, she just stared at him, but he took it as a good sign when she didn’t flee as he stood beside her. 

With the sleeves of his sweater pulled over his palms, he set his hands around the freezing cold metal of the railing. His gaze trailed over the parking lot, and all the cheap, worn down models of cars spotted around. “Don’t think I’ve ever been in a place so lowbrow before,” he murmured. Marta rolled her eyes.

“You probably still wouldn’t be if you hadn’t killed anyone,” she snapped. He huffed and shook his head.

“But then we’d never know what we are – what we’re _really_ capable of.”

“That’s not worth what we’ve lost.”

“Maybe for _you_ , Miss Inheritance.”

“I _mean_ my family!” Marta snapped, damn near baring her teeth in fury. He rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s a great big tragedy there.”

“Just because you hate your family-“

“You don’t get it, do you?” he interrupted her. He twisted toward her, one hand still hooked around the railing. She grabbed the lapels of her cover up and tugged it tightly around her as she took a step away from him. “We both have a clean slate here. No expectations, or people to answer to. No burdens, or responsibilities-“ he said, before Marta’s abrupt snort shocked him silent.

“I hardly think you know _anything_ about responsibility,” she muttered. He smiled, another sharp, empty thing.

“You have no idea what it was like being in my family. Being under the old man, having the parents I did. You have no fucking idea,” he said, low and angry. “And now that I’m free of that, I’m not wasting my time wallowing about what was.” He turned back toward the railing and set his other hand on it again, lessening the tension between them somewhat. As an afterthought, he murmured, “Although… I will miss the Beamer.”

“Having a shitty family is no excuse for what you did, and just because we died in the public eye doesn’t give you a _clean slate_. Not with me,” Marta muttered.

“Be still my beating heart,” Ransom drawled. His sharp blue eyes slanted toward her. “You’re not getting rid of me any time soon, Marta. Like it or not, we’re bound by this… and who knows how long we’re going to live.” He turned toward her again. “You really want to spend the rest of forever holding a grudge?” he asked, before _tsk-ing_ at her in a way that made her blood boil. He almost laughed, more delighted than he ever thought he’d be by ruffling her feathers. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can kill me again. Even the odds a bit.”

She balked, but when she saw the twinkle in his eye, she sneered instead. “Don’t tempt me,” she muttered, shocked again when he laughed. She hated how rich and sweet it sounded, and it made her stomach knot up with all kinds of conflicting feelings. She looked away, stared at the ground, and tried to ignore the way the breeze carried his smoky scent past her nose.

“Another time, maybe,” he mused, letting his hands slide off the railing. She looked toward him, watching as he retreated for the motel door. He waved and said, “Goodnight,” and left Marta to feel horribly confused in his wake.


End file.
